sgeek comments on Teachable Rationality Skills - Less Wrong

52 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 27 May 2011 09:57PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (257)

Sort By: Controversial

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: sgeek 02 June 2011 10:09:40PM 5 points [-]

I think the key here is qualification - Robert Morris avoided being wrong by not stating things unqualified unless he was sure of them, whereas the failure mode for rationalists is not expressing an idea at all unless fairly sure of it.

We want ideas to be shared before they're well-supported, because discussion is generally the best way for them to find support (or disproof) - we just need to signal the uncertainty when we introduce an idea.

It's much like what I've been taught in analytical chemistry - every number has a stated uncertainty associated with it.